


Just a Fascination (With You)

by RandomC



Series: My Danganronpa Works [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: But they will show up, Detective/Thief AU, First Long Fic, Side characters don't really show up that often, Slow Burn, some extra characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 14:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13637886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomC/pseuds/RandomC
Summary: “Shuichi, I need you to take charge by attending the heist with the police tonight in substitution for Mr. Saihara.”Another fic where Shuichi is a detective and Kokichi is a thief.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is my first chaptered fanfiction and the most that I have written for fun.  
> I really like the detective/phantom thief AU for these two, so I figured that I might try my hand at writing one myself.
> 
> I really hope that you enjoy! Thank you!

As per usual, Shuichi Saihara rode his bike to work, storing it by the entrance of the small gray-faded office building. More than half of his waking hours were spent working at the Saihara Detective agency doing research for his investigations or ding a variety of field work. Although Shuichi shared the last name, his uncle was the one who actually ran the business. Many people believed that the boy would inherit the business, but Shuichi felt more comfortable focusing on investigation cases rather than adding the management of a business to his schedule.

When he entered, a few “Good morning!”s  were tossed his way and then reciprocated, leaving only ghosts of friendly conversation in their wake. Taking note that it seemed a lot quieter than usual, he sat down at his desk and took out the case file he was currently working on. A runaway cat.

Last night he had taken the case when no one else had and he planned to question the family about the cat’s interests and activities to try to determine where it might have run off to and then head out to look for it. The only reason he came to the office first was to organize a couple of files on the case and retrieve his investigation notebook that was left here overnight.

Before he had a chance to leave, his scattered, but organized, files had been overtaken by a large shadow. Looking up, Shuichi found himself looking upon a massive man with a bright smile looking down on him who he recognized as his uncle’s best friend and top employee. Startled by the sudden appearance, the boy fumbles out a greeting.

“H-Hello, sir. What can I help you with?”

“HA-HAH.” His voluminous laugh visibly shakes the liquid in Shuichi’s water bottle copying the slight flinch from its owner from the sudden loud noise. “I’ve told you before to drop the formalities, son. I have a personal request I would like to ask of you, if you’re not too busy today.”

Eyebrows raised slightly on the boy’s face by the sudden proposal from his superior. The man didn’t normally come to the others for help but more-so for light conservation when people looked particularly stressed from work or other issues. Focusing hard on not immediately tipping his hat down to avoid the man’s beaming eyes, Shuichi responds. “I have to do a small investigation first, but it should be over fairly quickly. What would you like me to do?”

“You know how you’re uncle is tackling that phantom thief case recently?” Of course Shuichi knew about the case since his uncle had been on it for a couple months and was very frustrated in having close to nothing to show for it yet. Even if the thief and their crew would only show up every couple of weeks following a notice to the police as to where, when, and what they would steal. They never left any trace behind and would even return the stolen good(s) the next day with a pair of dice as a kind of calling card. Wile the police did not take kindly to being mocked like this, the media had taken an interest and had started to call them DICE, which the thieves wholeheartedly embraced.

“The thing is that tonight is the next heist that they are going to pull and your uncle has been really looking forward to attending with the police so he can try to gather more clues to help in the case. However, I am going to have to bring him back home and confine him to his house today since his face was a lizard green when he came in this morning. For his own safety and to protect the others from his illness he has to go home and rest up rather than push himself with this case. That’s where you come in. Shuichi, I need you to take charge by attending the heist with the police tonight in substitution for Mr. Saihara.”

His uncle certainly seemed a bit taxed over the last couple of days in the office; Shuichi regret not taking measures himself to keep his uncle healthy. “I-I’m flattered, but.... Why me specifically?” the boy questions. “I’ve mostly taken smaller, personal cases recently, and I haven’t dealt with any large-scale thieves. Surely there are other people in the building who are more experienced than myself who would be able to gather more valuable information?”

“There are a couple others that I asked that have more experience with cases like this, I admit, but they all are either too busy to help out now or the request is too last-minute for them to attend. Also, a lot of them seem to avoid dealing with the case since so many of the initial detectives have dropped it for being too hard or time-consuming, leaving your uncle as the sole official investigator. However! I wanted to ask you as well, despite your inexperience with cases such as this, because you have proven yourself to be a very capable young man based on the performances and results of your investigations! I feel like this would also be a grand opportunity that will stretch your boundaries and give you new experiences as a detective! But of course, this is just a personal request from me for my good friend, so you can just decline if you wish. I don’t want to pressure you into this if it is out of your comfort zone.”

Thinking it over for only a moment, Shuichi decides that this experience would be good to expand his own knowledge and would ease some stress off of his uncle, who really should be getting some rest.

“Alright, I’ll do it. Could you give me the details?”

“That’s the spirit!” Shuichi had only a few seconds to prepare himself for a firm pat, more like a slap, on the back. “The police are setting up at 08:00 PM outside the location of the heist, the Kami Art Museum, three hours before DICE is supposed to show up around 11:00 PM. Here are some files on the subject for you to look over beforehand-” a small folder plops onto the already crowded desk, “-although there is close to nothing recorded about the group. The police will give you the details when you get there, so you can just try to focus on finding clues and information about them while leaving the chase to the police, but don’t be upset if you don’t figure anything out since no one else has either! Anyway, at least try your best and make the most out of your time there!”

With the major presence gone from the room, Shuichi’s body went limp in his chair while he gave into his habit and finally lowered his cap down to cover his eyes. To the boy who rarely gets an abundance of social interaction, talking with the energetic man was taxing and exhausting, although not unbearable. Figuring out a mental itinerary for the day, he decided to head out into the glaring sun and investigate.

This day was turning out to be much longer than Shuichi Saihara had originally intended.

 

**XXXXX**

 

The sun shone brightly, unhindered by the loose strings of white in the sky overhead. The slight breeze helped to alleviate the heat accumulating in Shuichi’s entirely black outfit. After being in the field for less than an hour, the Scottish Fold was found rummaging through a neighbor's trash to retrieve some discarded leftover salmon bits. The rest of the remaining time was spent to reunite the family to their lost pet and disinfect/dress the wounds that littered his body from the whole process.

Arriving back at his office with a couple hours until he had to leave to meet up with the police, Shuichi occupied himself with quickly organizing some of his other cases before focusing on the case file for the thief group DICE. The contents held only about ten loose papers as files despite the case being investigated for slightly less than three years.

According to the files, despite there being so much hype about the phantom thief, the heists were committed by a band of misfits with the codename DICE. Their name was based on the group leaving a pair of dice with the stolen goods that they return the very next day to the police. Stealing for about three years, DICE had grown bolder and more flashy with their heists, which had gained more attention from the media. Their flamboyant leader was the one who did the actual stealing while the others tended to deal with the pre and post theft accommodations, such as preparing their traps, “pranks” they dubbed them, and procuring an escape route. With the leader being at the center of attention, the media tended to automatically focus on him rather than his partners in crime.

The case file listed seven recorded members of the group, the first one being their leader, along with very brief bios of each of them. Most of the information provided dealt with physical characteristics with only quick notes of the mannerisms shown by the ones that were sighted the most often. The phantom thief himself had the most information recorded on him. He had referred to himself as a male on one of his heists and also that he was at least old enough to be out of high school after overhearing a reporter say that he looked like he was skipping out on his elementary school classes. There were very little if not zero potential suspects with so little information to go from and there was no way to confirm or even deny the words that came from his mouth.

Under his bio it stated that he was a compulsive liar and very fickle with his emotions, so even the experienced detectives had a really hard time trying to figure him and his gang out. The ones who were the most interested in figuring out his personality found that they had to deal with a lot more of the gang’s tricks than the others, almost as if the thief was intrigued by their attempts to get to know him and was testing them. Inevitably, even the most interested fell off the case because they just couldn’t deal with all the “pranks” the thief set up for them.

The case seeming more exhausting by the minute, the clock finally reached the appropriate time for the young detective to head out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this! I very much appreciate your views and I hope that you enjoyed!
> 
> This chapter was just supposed to set the scene for this work. I plan to have more dialogue in the later chapters, since dialogue stories are the ones I like to read the most, but only when Shuichi takes a break from his work and actually goes to talk with his friends and stuff.
> 
> I have everything for the rest of the story planned out, but I’m open to suggestions. I just might not use them or they might already a part of the story I have planned.  
> Notes on how I can improve are welcome too! I expect this to be about 12 chapters, or so, but things could be added, subtracted, or mixed together in the process. Tags will update based on the chapters released, but you can ask me to tag anything I missed.
> 
> Thank you all again so, so much, really! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	2. Chapter Two

Pressure was light for the police trying to catch this elusive phantom thief. The reasoning was that the stolen goods would always show up the next day anyway, but the remaining pressure stemmed from the media’s attention on the flamboyance of the whole situation, thus making the police look bad since they haven’t caught the group yet and that they were criminals.

Shuichi made his way over the the police chief who was barking orders to her force to prepare and patrol the area in order to intercept the thieves. Fidgeting for words as the boy’s legs wouldn’t move, the police chief’s head suddenly whipped around almost as if she could sense that one of her own was slacking off. Eyes calmed from “I will murder you” harsh to a more “professional” harsh as the slightly shivering detective shrunk from the intense gaze.

“Oh, you must be Mr. Shuichi Saihara. I was informed that you would be here to serve as our detective seeing as Mr. Saihara is incapacitated.”

Hands locked in a firm/flimsy amalgamation of a hand-shake the boy mentally begged the woman not to notice the accumulating moisture on his body that was making his hands clammy.

“Most of the people who were on the case got fed-up with how little information they were able to get on the thief and ended up quitting the chase. Your uncle has earned my respect by being the only one who was able to stick with us and continue to try figuring these little troublemakers out. Although the detectectives have dropped from the case the media has yet to drop any of their attention whenever a new notice is revealed.” She commented bitterly before continuing.

“This time, those thieves gave us a notice that they plan to rob the art museum of one of their pieces. Usually their notices give enough information about their heist plans, as if they are mocking us,“ she huffed before continuing, ”but this time it’s pretty vague in just what DICE plans to steal tonight. There are plenty of valuable paintings within these halls, but we decided to cover the most priceless ones, the ones we believe the thief will plan to steal. It would be a huge help to know where to put our patrols, and we usually ask Mr. Saihara for help cracking open their more ambiguous plans, but you’re in his place so we’re counting on you to at least try to figure it out now, son.” Shoving a piece of copy paper into trembling fingers, the police chief went right back to corraling subordinates hanging out idly in the sidelines.

 _Great. More pressure for my already pounding chest. Wait, don’t think of it like that, you’re here so you’re uncle can get some rest. Thick of it as... a puzzle? This is supposed to be an experience, right? ...I just hope that I don’t completely embarrass uncle while I’m in his place. Alright, the note first. Focus on the note._  

The paper Shuichi held between his still-clammy fingers was just a photocopy of the real thing. The flip sides of the small notecard centered and placed vertically above and below one another, but the evidence of glitter and Crayola crayons refused to be left out of the imitation. In messy handwriting, the note read “ _Tonight at the Kami art museum, DICE will kidnap the lovely_ _angel’s_ _painting at 2300 in_ _a long night_ _._ ” Taking it all in, the note seemed very childish in nature. He could see why the police chief seemed on-edge; the arrogant mocking tone in the underlined phrases wouldn’t be able to get away without leaving a dent in one’s pride. Although the emphasis could be a red herring, Shuichi had seen enough of the notices from his uncle to know that rarely, if ever, the case. He felt like he should get some more information about the museum before he started to try and deduce anything.

While staying out of the way of the hustling police, the boy detective made his way into the museum to investigate possible clues as to what the thieves wanted to steal. Having been to this art museum a couple of times with one of his best friends, Kaede, Shuichi knew most of the paintings and exhibits featured here. Walking around, he took careful notes on each painting and how they might correlate to the notice, even taking one of the museum brochures to look at in case it could offer some insight into the paintings that were hung up. There were very few paintings about angels, and none of them were incredibly precious to the museum, save one, which was were most of the police present were guarding. It was even the fifth most valuable piece of the museum, third most valuable painting, so definitely a target for DICE’s schemes. 

The other most valuable pieces were also guarded, but by a lesser quantity of guards who watched their stations in pairs with an extra guard at the number one most valuable painting. Shuichi looked over the brochure for information about these top-tier paintings.

Hifumi Yamada’s painting is the one that formed the third most valuable painting and fifth most valuable in the museum. Just coming short of being considered too raunchy to be included in this museum, the piece was still truly a work of art. Out of the all of the exhibits, this one seemed the most likely to be connected to the thieves notice about the angel’s painting considering a female-looking humanoid cloaked in white and wings stared down passer-bys with a lustful expression.

The number one most valuable painting was created by Ryota Mitarai. Mitarai is commonly known for the anime that he creates that touches the hearts of any who watch it, but he dabbles with paintings in his spare free time. Since he doesn’t make them often, the ones collected in museums are cherished as he puts as much effort into his still paintings as he does to his animations.

However, the second most valuable painting caught Shuichi’s attention the most. The painting was made by Angie Yonaga, a famous painter in the local area. Most of her art gets put into her own dedicated art museum, named Atua’s Art Appreciation, and any that don’t fit get sent off to prestigious art museums across the world. Yonaga claims that she does so to speak the word and will of Atua across the globe. The piece that was here was one of the rejects thrown out after Angie claimed that Atua had gotten bored with it. This museum quickly lapped it up, considering that it was still a Yonaga original, even if it wasn’t as valued as her other works. What caught Shuichi’s attention was the “fun facts” box at the bottom of the piece’s description which provided the meaning of Angie Yonaga’s name. Respectively, each part of her name could translate to “angel” and “a long night,” the exact underlined words from the phantom thief’s notice.

As this realization arrived, the police chief’s presence overpowered the front entrance of the museum and Shuichi could hear her stern voice even from the far hallway of the second floor.

“Alright, there’s only twenty more minutes until the arrival of those thieves! You all better be in your places and ready for anything, and I do mean _anything_!”

Shit, how long had he been walking around in thought? _I have to tell the police what I’ve found at least._

Gathering the confidence he could muster, Shuichi brought himself to the police chief to inform her about his theory.

“Haha! Good work, boy! And it only took you an hour of investigating the scene! It sort-of pains me to tell you this, but I had told your uncle that we could solve the puzzle beforehand so that he could get some well-deserved rest, but we ended up pushing it on you last minute when we couldn’t fully figure it out and took the notice at face value. So thank you.” Shocked by the police chief’s rare kind words, she abandoned the conversation and returned to her more gruff voice. “Alright, men! Four of you stay down here, and the rest come upstairs with me!”

The men left to go upstairs with only five more minutes until the theft was supposed to take place. With nothing else to do, Shuichi followed the police up the stairs and doing his best not to get in their way while they worked.

 

**XXXXX**

 

Final preparations were made as the clock hit the hour and immediately there was a flash of light, blinding those in the room and forcing them to shut their eyes. Even before lifting his eyes, Shuichi knew there was only one person who would cause such a scene and everyone within the hall stood their ground.

Standing in front of them stood a small boy standing very childishly with his hands on his hips with, probably, an arrogant expression hidden under a halloween-esque clown mask. After seeing only pictures and articles about the thief from his uncle, Shuichi was dumbstruck by the absolute presence of DICE’s leader. He commanded attention from everyone in the room, and not just because he was the criminal they were trying to contain.

“Nishishi” The piercing laughter echoed through the halls followed by the flap of a midnight black cape with purple accents inside fluttering in the non-existent breeze, clashing with his messy white outfit. Most of the police were still reeling from the sudden light, but others blindly scrambled to grab at the general direction of the cape only to be met with empty space or other police officers. Even the boy detective had to squint and strain his eyes to view the scene in front of him, determined to get any information that he could while pressed against a supporting wall.

“You all seem so eager to catch me today! And here I was thinking that no one was going to be able to see my gorgeous display for the night, but surprise surprise! You all came to greet me only a few minutes before my performance! Such dedication!”

Shuichi thought he had prepared himself for the thief’s taunts but found himself woefully unprepared for an actual face-to-mask interaction. He seemed much more intense than what was originally thought.

“Hmm…. I would love to stay and chat, but I have a painting to snatch!” Cape creating a curtain while spinning around, the painting was quickly replaced by a slightly discolored painting-size wall. “And with that, I must bid you all adieu!”

Something small slid out of the cloaked hand of the thief and a thin fog of smoke started covering the room where Angie Yonaga’s art piece used to be.

“Bye, bye, my wonderful supporters! Until next time~!”

After those parting words, Shuichi felt something cloth-like brush against his arm as the police struggled with each other by the afterimage of the missing painting, and turned around to find a window shutting itself. Scrambling around the chaos, the window was returned to its recently opened state and Shuichi found himself staring at the plastered clown mask against the alley bellow that seemed to meet his gaze after a second. Both barely having enough time to react, one of the police officers came over out of curiosity before sharing the gaze of the thief and yelling for his comrades as even the shifting cape vanished into the darkness.

Throughout the ruckus behind him, Shuichi’s feet were planted, refusing to leave the window or leave behind the brief moment he had with the trickster. Despite having no information to go off of besides an in-person meeting, the detective tried to put his title to use analyzing the criminal. _Who even was this kid_? The case had definitely been an interesting experience, there was no denying that.

The next day, the painting was returned to the police station, draped in a sparkly purple present and bow, along with a new notice and a pair of small dice.

“ _At the Mineral Symposium, the Pink Star will disappear at 2300._ _Your’s truly ~DICE_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading through both of my first chapters! It really means a lot!
> 
> I don’t know if I would consider these characters to be OCs or anything since I planned for them only to show up here to get the ball rolling. I highly doubt that they will show up again.
> 
> I was looking at Angie’s bio for the notice and I remembered that Angie’s favorite item is an avocado. Why are there no posts about Angie and our favorite avocado man?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! After these chapters, Ouma shows up more, but for now it’s just filler with a dash of Ouma.  
> I’m not the best at continuing long fics, apparently, but I am absolutely going to finish this one and get the experience and satisfaction for completing it!!  
> If you’ve stuck with the fic thus far, thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy what’s to come!

Shuichi found himself on the phantom thief case for another day. Apparently the police received a notice that DICE would show up at the Mineral Symposium to steal the Pink Star diamond, but the meeting was going to take place a lot sooner than normal. They would show up the night following the arrival of the notice leaving only a single night of respite between their recent thefts.

Usually their heists would take place less than once every two weeks, so having two in less than a single week, barely a day in between, was unprecedented. Mr. Saihara didn’t even have a chance to recover before the thieves were up-and-thieving again, so Shuichi was called in for another favor as he was still only working on small cases and he had helped out previously.

This time around it was actually the police who formally asked for his help on this case as they were saying that he was a great help on the last heist. Shuichi was quick to accept the offer, although he was pretty sure he hadn’t contributed anything substantial to their chase outside of figuring out DICE’s target. His heart felt otherwise as it beat heavily from the small praise and maybe just a little bit of excitement at the prospect of trying to figure the thieves out. And to help the police capture them. Right. And to help his uncle out while he’s stuck in bed trying to recover from his sickness.

 

**XXXXX**

 

There were a lot more people scattering the ground beneath the seven story conference center that was currently hosting a variety of gems by the Mineral Symposium than the last time outside of the art museum. Probably because this area was located closer to the shopping district of the city rather than the outskirts.

Even thought it was only his second time attending one of DICE’s heists, Shuichi was given permission to do whatever he wanted in order to help his investigation of the crime and even given a walkie-talkie to keep in quick contact with the police instead of his cell phone. Having no prior experience in this type of set-up, the detective opted to stay on the sidelines to just keep a watch on the building and follow the escape route of the thief.

By just staying on the outskirts of the operation, Shuichi felt that he could keep an easy watch on the situation and gain more information about the thief and his crew by watching their movements. The police were the ones who were supposed to catch the thief after all. He was only here to gather information and make their jobs easier for the future with advice.

After looking around for potential locations, he decided to claim his base on an adjacent building to the conference center opposite to the room where the Pink Star was being kept and, hopefully, safely guarded.

Shuichi felt prepared with his notebook and and pen equipped in one hand with a pair of binoculars in the other. He kept his walkie-talkie close to his side as it was clipped to side of his pants and patiently waited for the heist to commence.

 

**XXXXX**

 

Commotion erupted from the building and snapped Shuichi out of his waiting stupor. Positioning his binoculars, he aimed for the windows close to the Pink Star Diamond. Switching from window to window to follow the movements, he saw some flashes of red, the alarms most likely, blue police uniforms, very slight flashes of pink, and ...a bit of darkness to the side of one of the middle windows? It didn’t look like the building’s shadows, but before he could investigate further, the phantom thief donned in his attention-grabbing white garb peeked out of the window closest to the building’s entrance. He immediately jumped out, only to be carried with the wind under his revealed hang glider to the shock of all the policemen huddled around the window he just escaped from and those on the streets.

Fumbling with his binoculars and following closely along with the steak of white, Shuichi questioned the validity of that figure flying away. Although the phantom thief was flashy, he wasn’t a fool. Whoever was up there was probably one of DICE’s members meant to create a distraction so that the actual phantom thief could escape with the gem.

Twisting his head back to the building to investigate, there was no time for the boy enveloped in black pinstripe clothing to react as something large and forceful collided with his side. Both fell to the ground in a heap, the unknown force tumbling a little farther away from the detective.

“Ow!” Shuichi and a second party complained in unison.

Looking up as he rubbed his throbbing arm revealed a man lying in a very similar position to himself with a black coat with, dark purple accents underneath? An unintentionally discarded hang glider lay to the side. Suspicions were confirmed as the disheveled man in front of him turned to face him, revealing a very familiar clown mask. Reaching for the walkie-talkie in his pocket to contact the police, he noticed it was no longer clipped to his pants, but was on the floor in pieces. Shit. Thoughts about repayment for the broken communication device were left for later given the circumstances.

Picking himself up, Shuichi started up conversation. “You…. You wouldn’t happen to be the phantom thief, would you?” Great start.

“How rude!” Shuichi flinched at the harshly spoken words. “You knock into me and don’t even ask if I’m okay? You must be a meanie! Bully!” Tears were now streaming down his face, even making their way outside of his mask, along with an assortment of sniffles. The detective didn’t know how to respond to whatever was going on here. Was he himself in the wrong? He had to comfort grievances and help people deal with losses, but this? He had no idea where to even start with what was going on now. Was this the same phantom thief he had seen a couple nights previous?

Shaken by the thief’s words and actions, the detective reached for his hat, only to find it had been knocked off from the impact. He opted to just cover his face with his already raised hand to try to find a way to respond to this situation.

“Uh… A-Are you alright?”

“Sniff…. My leg hurts…. Pick me up….”

This entire scenario is far beyond what the detective could ever image happening in any portion of his life and is already in the running for the most awkward moment he has ever been a part of. The thief was the one who collided into him but then he blames the victim, and even now Shuichi finds himself going over to the very criminal he’s trying to catch to help him up and see if he’s okay.

Only to find himself reversing positions with the thief and being pinned to the ground by his elbows and a weight positioning itself on his stomach.

“Nishishishi! That was a lie! Man, it was so obvious too, for a detective you’re not that discerning.” Shuichi’s face grew red, and not just from their position. “But hey, I did not expect someone to be along my escape route, so that’s very lucky of you. You seem to not be completely inept, Shuichi Saihara. Although, I’m not going to complain about a young guy chasing me rather than some old geezer.”

Despite the boy’s small size, Shuichi’s struggles could not push the boy off, leading him to decide to save his energy for when the thief had to get off of him to escape. Any attempts that he would have tried to make were cut-off by the mention of his full name.

Struggling not to stutter, he responded, “How do you know my name?” But growing a bit irked at the last bit he added with a scowl, “Also, you must already know that that ‘old geezer’ and I are related if you know who I am.”

With a small chuckle, the thief responded. “Silly Saihara! I know everything about everyone who’s chasing me, so of course I knew! I can see the resemblance in your attitudes a tad, but even you should be able to admit it’s always better to be chased by a cutie who looks around your own age, right? I saw you through the window of my last escape route as well, but might I say that you look a lot more dashing without your hat on? Or maybe that’s a lie, who knows!”

Finding his opportunity to jump away from the rosy-red cheeked, wide-eyed detective without getting caught, the still-masked thief slid to the opposite side of the roof, picking up his hang glider on the way. “Aaanyway~ I am on a tight schedule, so I should be leaving soon…. I must say, you are quite the interesting person. I hope you come to more of my performances, and that’s not a lie.”

Shuichi could only do so much as watch as the eccentric youth was whisked away from him by the wind. “Until next time, my beloved detective! Nishishishi!”

What… what just happened?

 

**XXXXX**

 

Thoughts surrounding the phantom thief swarmed Shuichi’s mind as he biked ride back to his apartment. He felt like he could relate the police a bit more; being mocked like that was certainly frustrating to say the least. Why did the thief have to be such a flirt?

He had told the police about his encounter with the phantom thief on the rooftop, only giving them the basic details, and apologized as he handed them back the remains of his walkie-talkie. The police were a lot more understanding than Shuichi thought they would be, but a lot of their questions and concerns were targeted towards the thief, but that was to be expected. After revealing all that he was willing to and searching around the building and its windows for clues about DICE, Shuichi gave up on finding out anything of substance and went home for the day.

Why am I getting so flustered over this? It was probably just one of his pranks. A test to see what can get under my skin. And whatever the method, Shuichi realized the criminal was accomplishing his apparent goal to break the detective’s composure.

Every detective had a different experience with the band of thieves than others, and what ever had just happened would be qualified as an experience for the detective. He couldn’t help but wonder if the other detectives had to go through something similar, not that he would ever ask them about it.

Reading the other’s notes about the thief beforehand and actually conversing with him turned out to be incredibly different. The reality of the thief was a lot more exaggerated than what he was lead to believe in the files on him. He had know idea what to think of the thieves now.

Despite feeling as though he was toyed with, Shuichi couldn’t keep down the butterflies in his stomach from all the excitement from the day that made his heart pound. None of his other cases have ever held the same rush that this one carried. Whether it was because of case itself or the prospect of chasing down the elusive thief that no one could catch Shuichi couldn’t tell, but he looked forward to the next time he might be called onto the case again.

Shuichi arrived at his apartment and only wanted to collapse on his bed from the exhaustion that had formed within the past couple of hours. Only to find something sharp poke his chest when he did.

Scrunching his eyebrows, he dialed his home phone to call the police station recalling that his uncle had to do the same on rare occasions. At least now he would remember that at least one person in DICE’s gang knew how to lockpick very well as tired eyes stared down at the Pink Star diamond in his hand. The other held a note and a pair of dice.

“For our favorite newbie detective. With love ~DICE”


	4. Chapter 4

Today Shuichi was meeting up with his friends to catch up in person rather than their usual group chat. They had all found some time in their busy schedules to plan a catch-up session at their old nostalgic coffee shop that they had frequented during high school together. It was quite rare for them all to meet up together since they all traveled often for their jobs with the exception being Shuichi, who would only travel for his larger investigations when needed.

Shuichi was the first one to arrive being the closest to the cafe and leaving early, but the others joined quickly after and they ordered some food and drinks from the counter.

Although he had expected to feel like a fifth wheel on a double date, Shuichi couldn’t help but twiddle his fingers and drink his black coffee as his close friends were grouped up and affectionately sharing their food. To his left, Kaede and Rantaro were sharing a large strawberry smoothie, heads touching lightly, sipping slowly from their straws as if they wanted to keep the beverage lasting forever. To his right, Kaito was semi-successfully feeding Maki pieces of his galaxy cake with the later affectionately pouting and glaring at the former, but not denying the sweet edible provided on his fork.

Shuichi felt bad for his awkwardness since they had all gotten together to connect again, but he couldn’t help but feel out of place within all the affection radiating off of the couples surrounding him. He felt as if he should be used to their affection by now as both couples have been dating for years, but he still found himself out of place around their cuddles.

Despite this, he tried his best to focus on the conversations about how everyone was doing rather than the overly sweet hand holding of the others.

Kaito had recently returned from his second official space mission for his company’s space station in order to deliver some supplies to the other astronauts who were there and help fix some of the information receiving instruments that they had. He was quite proud to be a part of anything space related, but even more-so when he could actually journey out there himself.

“It was a great experience! Not only because space is amazing, but the more I go up there, the more chances I get to go back again! The only thing I would change would be to have Maki there beside me, but I’m not going to drag her from home.” Cheeks on the girl in question pinkening, a shove was sent in Kaito’s direction along with a “Do you want to die.” The only response she received was a boisterous laugh from the tall man and a quick side hug that only made her cheeks brighter and her pout bigger.

Maki was reluctant to say anything about herself aside from that she was traveling around doing “odd jobs” while Kaito was away. She spoke little and only revealed where she went and some objective facts about those places, but nothing about what she herself did or how she felt there.

Rantaro and Kaede recounted their own tales from traveling around the world. Kaede performed piano recitals as they drove cross-country and all around the world. Rantaro didn’t like being in cars, and carefully driving her grand piano around everywhere must have been incredibly difficult, but people from all around love Kaede’s performances so much they would give the couple food and a place to stay the night and food in return for her performance. Both of them loved traveling and loved to meet new people with new stories and lives to share with them.

“Oh, Rantaro, remember that one lonely old lady who would give out her apple pies to the orphaned kids in the neighborhood?” Recalled Kaede.

“Yeah, the kids used to steal them off her windowsill while they were cooling. Once she found out who the thieves were, she started to try and balance three pies in the window instead of just one for them. She was so sweet. Oh, and that reminds me. Shuichi, aren’t you working on that case about those phantom thieves right now?”

Almost choking on his coffee, Shuichi was content to just listen in on their stories and make small comments until Rantaro brought up his latest case. In truth, it wasn’t actually his case, but he had brought it up to the others in their group chat earlier and they jumped on the idea that he was trying to solve a large case like the phantom thief DICE case.

“Right, right! Shuichi, tell us about it! How is it going!” Kaede spoke up again in inquiry.

Shuichi looked to the side as the table’s attention shifted in his direction “There’s… not much to tell.” Now he lowered his hat a bit. “I’ve only been to two of the heists so far, and that’s only because my uncle was too sick to go. There’s nothing really eventful that went on.”

Perking up a bit with a smirk, Kaito called him out “Shuichi, I feel like you’re holding back from us! You can’t just leave us hanging without any details! Come on, spill it!”

A bit taken aback from the outburst and being called out, Shuichi thought for a second before deciding that he wanted to tell his friends about his experiences on the case. Especially since the event during the last heist wouldn’t leave his mind and he felt like he needed to talk about it. Try and sort-out all this… (frustration?) at what happened on the roof.

Giving his temples a small rub before he started, Shuichi recounted his experiences to the others quickly while leaving out the specifics of the more embarrassing parts that occured. They already knew a lot of the generics about the case from when he first mentioned it in the group chat, so he just quickly presented a list of a few points of the more personal key points of the heists, leading up to the latest one.

“And, uh, I was able to talk with the thief after the last heist. Nothing much besides that has happened.”

There was a brief pause of silence as he finished and Shuichi could instantly recognize that a storm was approaching.

He quickly put a finger to his lips trying to save the eardrums of himself, the other patrons, and staff as everybody at his table (except Maki) started to enthusiastically inquire more about his story.

After their self-awareness set in and they apologize quickly to the outsiders who lost interest in the rowdy bunch, Kaito took hold of the first questions in an attempted hushed tone.

“First things first, bro, you talked to the phantom thief himself? What was he like? What did you say?”

“I-I guess we didn’t talk about much? At first it seemed like he was injured from ramming into me, but he ended up steering our interaction to the way he wanted it to go. He was… very hard to follow in conversation. I guess out of conversation as well, but I can understand now why so many experienced detectives were not able to get a lot of relevant information from him or his partners. For example, I guess, during our conversation he had tried to fluster me with compliments so that he could make a clean escape, and I hate to say that it ended up working in his favor.” Shuichi looked to the side and continued to play with his hat as he recounted his conversation on the rooftop forcing down his embarrassed blush.

Kaito crossed his arms to give empty space a look of disappointment. “Dude. He sounds like a jerk.”

Kaede flicked her fork at him as she spoke in retaliation. “No, I think he sounds sweet, like a romantic! I mean, despite the fact that he’s a criminal and all, but think about it!” She leans into Rantaro as she talks, ”He sounds around your age and the thief falling for the detective who’s pursuing him sounds like a modern fairy tale!”

By this point in time, Shuich had all but completely encased his face with his hands and curled up into himself almost as if his blush would take up less space on his face if his body did the same.

Maki made a noise of disagreement at Kaede. “Still sounds like a jerk. I wouldn’t trust him if I were you, Shuichi. Actually, if I were you, I would have strangled him while he was still on the ground after ramming into me.”

Ignoring the last part, Kaito spoke up again. “I agree with Maki Roll on that one. He’s a jerk, and I’m sticking with that, but it does look like this is the most involved you were in any of your recent cases, so I have to say that I hope you stick with it. And it’s not JUST because I want to say that one of my sidekicks is working on catching a well-known thief!”

“I-It’s just a challenging case! Like an impossible puzzle, no one has been able to solve it before, so I want to see just how far I can get and even possibly solve it myself.” Shuichi spoke up, trying to defend himself before thinking that he might be insulting the detectives who dropped the case in frustration by proclaiming that he might be able to solve the case himself. ”Although I’m in no way as experienced as the other detectives who were on the case so I probably wouldn’t even get that far! I just wanted to try it out for a bit.”

Rantaro added his opinion to the conversation. “Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re in full support of you spending your time working on this case, no matter your reasoning. We can see that you seem really invested in this case and pretty intent on not letting it go unsolved. You say that the police are looking for more detectives to have one the case and that you aren’t on the case permanently yet, but I would recommend that you at least think about officially taking it on.”

“I doubt if the stress it brings would be good for me in the long-run, but it might actually be a good change of pace from my other investigations. ...Yeah, I’ll think about it.”

“Great to hear! Now Maki!” The woman in question snapped her head and glared at him with slight surprise. “Tell us about your trip to Belarus that you mentioned earlier! Kaede and I’ve been wanting to go, but we want to know a bit more about their culture and rules before officially planning anything.”

After things settled down and with the attention of of him, Shuichi relaxed into his chair. He was fairly comfortable talking to his friends, but he still didn’t like to be the center of attention, especially when he’s a bit flustered and vulnerable. Nevertheless, Shuichi enjoyed hanging out and talking with his friends who he had not seen for over a year and talked with them for the rest of the day.

The night continued on until the sun painted the sky in hues of purple and pink leading to sad goodbyes as each of them headed off to wherever they were going to stay the night. Shuichi mounted his bike and peddled down to his own place to rest: his apartment.

Only after arriving at his place did Shuichi bother checking his cell phone after his relaxing free day. He found that he had one missed call and it was from his uncle.


	5. Chapter 5

The day after his meet-up with his friends at the cafe, Shuichi was buying some get-well macaroons for his uncle.

After checking his phone, he had immediately called his uncle back and apologized for not being able to contact him sooner. Brushing it off, his uncle had told him that he wanted to talk about something with Shuichi and asked when the boy could visit. They decided that they could meet up the very next day at his uncle's home since they both had some free time from work and young detective wanted to know what important thing his uncle wanted to talk to him about in person.

Shuichi arrived at the cottage-esque house of his uncle right on time, just a minute or two before their planned meeting time. Knocking on the door thrice, he stood on the steps and waited, although it turned out to not be a long time.

The door opened to an old man in his 50s who didn’t look much older than 30. A kind smile spread across his face as he saw the boy and opened the door a bit more to let his nephew in. “Shuichi! Good to see you. Come in, come in.” Doing so, Shuichi handed him the macaroons with a nod of thanks as they both headed straight towards the living room, where they usually sat for their various talks here.

“Ah, this is why you’re my favorite nephew! You always know just what I want.”

Shuichi let out a soft chuckle. “That and the fact that I’m your only nephew.”

“That just means that you can’t deny that it’s true.” Mr. Saihara countered with a wink and continued. “Take a seat, I actually want to discuss some work with you. It could probably have waited until we were at work, but I wanted to discuss this with you as soon as possible to know where you stand on the issue.”

He sat down with a sigh. “First thing’s first, I'm going to announce my retirement from the phantom thief case tomorrow at the office.’

Shuichi was stunned. His uncle had never willingly given up a case before, something was wrong here and Shuichi jumped to the worst case scenario. “What? But why? You’re not dying are you?”

“Oh no. No, it’s nothing as dramatic as that. It’s just what with my recent sickness and me growing older and having less energy than in my youth, it pains me to say that my body can no longer handle always chasing after the thief all over the city. Mind you, I’m not even close to kicking the bucket just yet, and I still plan to work on investigations, but I feel like the case needs a fresh young face who can handle all the exercise that it brings from pursuing a wanted criminal. Which leads into the real reason I wanted to call you over here.” He took a deep breath and looked at Shuichi with determination in his eyes.

“I was hoping that you would be able to take over the case in my departure.”

Shuichi just sat in his seat with his mouth slightly agape. Not only did his uncle just tell him that he’s quitting the phantom thief case, but he also wants Shuichi to take it over for him? His friends had told him to think about taking the case himself, but this all seemed to be progressing too fast.

“I don’t want to leave the police hanging without an official investigator, especially seeing as they had personally requested me when I first took the case. You are my first choice to take over the case for a couple of reasons. For one, you are already acclimated with the case and the police already seem to like having you investigate for them when I contacted them earlier. That reminds me, you had an encounter with the thief himself huh?  Seems that even the thief has already accepted you as an investigator as well. He only taunts those he thinks will give him a challenge, and those ones are usually the investigators who were able to get the most information on DICE. You seem to have shown your potential as an investigator to both parties.”

“Another reason, an important one, is that you already seem to have taken an interest in the case from what I’ve heard, despite being dragged onto it because of my circumstances. You will still be able to work on cases outside of this one as well, the heists don’t happen as often as the recent two have, and there isn’t much research to do outside of what you can get from them during their heists and what's already available.”

Rubbing his neck a bit awkwardly, “I urge you to at least consider taking my offer, but I understand if you don’t want to undertake this. I don’t want to pressure you into taking the case if you don’t want to. I know it’s not your field of expertise and it’s outside of your comfort zone, but I do feel like you are the best person for the job given all of the information I have gathered.”

Pride billowed in Shuichi’s chest as he thought about what this offer meant. He knew that his uncle had a reputation of only giveing large cases to the detective(s) that were the most suitable to the task that was being handed out. This just meant that his uncle saw Shuichi as the best person to take on the DICE case and the detective couldn’t help but feel like this was a testament as to how much his uncle has come to respect his skills as a detective. Even if Shuichi himself doubted his own skill as a detective, his uncle believed in him and betraying his expectations wasn't even an option.

Finger lingering by his mouth while in thought, Shuichi was able to give his final decision to his uncle sooner rather than later. “I’ll take the case. It seems like it will be fun, and I was just talking to my friends about taking it on myself as well, so this works out well for me. I just thought I would be working on it with you rather than instead of you.”

Not even trying to hide the smile on his face, his uncle spoke again. “Great! I’m sorry you have to work on it alone with the police for now, although I have to admit that I’m glad you took it. I had some back-up options on who to contact to replace me if you rejected the offer, but I hoped that this case would stay in the most capable detective’s hands.” Shuichi let out an involuntary squeak as his uncle suddenly gave him a hug from the side. ”I’m so proud of you! You’ve grown so much from when you were solving your first mystery in class!”

Blushing slightly from the praise, Shuichi responded, “I’ll do my best and work hard to make sure the case won’t go unsolved.”

“That’s my favorite nephew! I see that tenacity runs in the family! Come here!” Pushing away from the nuggie his uncle was giving him, Shuichi couldn’t help but smile with the older man as he laughed having worked everything out.

 

**XXXXX**

 

They talked for a couple more hours about career happenings as well as personal events going on before parting for the night. “Feel free to come to me with any questions about the case, even if it’s just to talk! I’d be glad to share my experiences with you if you find yourself in a rut!”

“Oh course! It was nice talking to you! See you at the office!” Shuichi waved goodbye as he began to pedal back to his own home.

The young detective couldn’t help but feel conflicted as the wind brushed against his face as he headed home.

He was sad to see his uncle have to give up the case since he had been invested in for a long time now and was focused on trying to solve it. His uncle would never give up this case unless he truly felt he had to, so Shuichi couldn't help but worry over his health.

On the other hand, Shuichi had finally decided to take on the case himself to catch the phantom thieves of DICE. Even if he was given a nudge from his friends and his uncle, Shuichi felt that he wanted to work on this case himself. He wanted to live up to everyone's expectations and do his best.

As soon as he arrived home, Shuichi sat down at his desk and tried to research everything he could about what was available concerning the thieving group DICE. He would hate himself for investigating so late at night, but in the morning, but Shuichi was too focused on his work to care. As he put together his materials, he tried to push down the bubble of excitement that was growing in his chest, but he couldn't stop the corners of his lips up turning into a smile when he looked out his window and towards the bright full moon in the sky.

He would not give up until DICE was caught.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading this! I very much appreciate your views, comments, and kudos and I hope that you enjoyed! I hope you have a wonderful day!


End file.
